


The Painting

by Bitterblue



Category: Monster Blood Tattoo Series - D. M. Cornish
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Europe still has the portrait of Rossamünd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Painting

Sometimes, she talks to the painting.

It's absurd and she understands that; the painting is a ten year old portrait of a boy who is long since gone from her life. Europe has given up many of the little habits she found herself taking up after he left. She no longer stops to speak to particularly bright-looking sparrows in the woods. She has hired a scold for a factotum who is entirely practical and not simultaneously awe-struck and cheerfully disobedient. This habit, she keeps.

The painting doesn't speak back. It's a painting. It cannot. But sometimes, when she is very tired, she can imagine his voice with a clarity that surprises her. 

The servants are in bed; she has struggled with insomnia more and more of late. The painting hangs in her office, opposite the portrait of herself at a similar age. She questions him about political intrigues, about new potential recipes that improve the taste of this or that potive. She speaks quietly, frankly, about the monsters she has killed. She can imagine his discomfort. He pleads with her for mercy. She pleads in return for the strength to take it.

Without him there, with only the painting, Europe cannot be what he wants. 

"I am growing old, little man."

The painting offers only silent recriminations.


End file.
